When an old scrapbook stirs memories, Billy Bryan looks back to the year 1947 when he was playing winter ball in Cuba, enjoying Havana's decadent nightlife, and dreaming of a major-league career.

    Enthralled by possibility, Henry begins guiding every instance of Denny's behavior, ensuring that every action performed on one side is matched by an equal action on the other-whether it's throwing a ball, swinging a bat, brushing his teeth, coloring, and even wiping his ass.Denny quickly distinguishes himself from his peers, most conspicuously by his ability to throw perfectly with either arm, a feat virtually unheard of in baseball. But he also possesses a visionary gift that not even he understands. Denny becomes a superior athlete, skyrocketing through the minor leagues and into the majors where he experiences immediate success, breaking records held for decades.When a journalist, a former student of Henry's hungry for a national breakout story, exaggerates the teacher's obsession and exposes him to the world as a monster, all hell breaks loose and the pressures of media and celebrity threaten to disrupt the world that Henry and Denny have created. A baseball novel-and much more--The Man with Two Arms is a story of the ways in which we protect, betray, forgive, love, and shape each other as we attempt to find our way through life.

    Where you might just end up rooting for the bad guy…If you like demonic games, angelic interventions, and thrilling temptations, you'll love this urban fantasy and paranormal romance collection of twisted proportions in Wings of the Wicked. Including Stories From... USA Today bestselling author Charlene A. WilsonUSA Today bestselling authors Dariel Raye & Muffy WilsonCarolyn ReillyKim CarmichaelJ.R. ThornLynda Kaye FrazierLexi C. FossRavenna TateMaddie WadeUSA Today bestselling author LaVerne ThompsonUSA Today bestselling author Shereen VedamColleen S MyersDitter KellenRS McCoyK.B. Ladnier & Amara KentErin LeeErica Gerald MasonZachary Paul ChopchinskiDrea ShaneNichole Riley & N.K. StackhouseAmy CissellLeona BushmanBetty ShrefflerKhardine GrayNew York Times bestselling author Rebecca Hamilton

     Five years after the brutal slaying of her husband, software executive Jill Shannon is ready to take the next step in her life. But with her wedding to prosecuting attorney Conner Manning just eight weeks away, her future father-in-law’s political ambitions for her fiancé threaten all her hopes. Jill’s past holds dark secrets. Secrets she can’t afford to have exposed under the relentless lights of a political campaign. When Phoenix Detective David Shaw turns up at Jill’s door asking questions about a reporter's murder, he has no idea what a lethal Pandora’s Box he’s just opened. Was the womanizing reporter killed by a jealous husband, or was it related to his drug use? Or did it have something to do with the secret expose the reporter was working on? Jill Shannon looks like a dead-end lead but Shaw can’t shake the feeling the beautiful widow has secrets she’s not sharing. Jill is caught between the sins of her past and the shattered hopes for her future. Shaw finds himself drawn deeper into a twisted labyrinth of lies and danger. One thing is clear: some vows are made out loud in front of witnesses. But some vows are made in silence, and witnesses can’t be left alive.

    

    The right girl would slide into his life as seamlessly as a ball into his glove. That’s what he wanted. A typical boy meets girl, girl falls for jock story. But that’s not what he got. He had to fall for the one girl he couldn’t have. The one girl he shouldn’t want. His best friend Aaron's younger sister, Charlee.How could he not? She breathed fresh life back into his empty soul just by existing. Loving her was as simple as existing. He just did and nothing would change that.If only he could convince her of that. Charlee Cooper isn't interested in starting another relationship. The scars from her past left her feeling like it would be impossible to ever truly love someone. It was a part of her life she had come to accept. She has her daughter and that is all the love she will ever need. When secrets from the past are revealed, the subtle sparks between Lucas and Charlee ignite into a fiery passion neither can ignore. Will the heat destroy everything she is? Or will a chance at love prove the greatest victory of all?You decide.Yours truly, Saylor

    Frommer paints Shoeless Joe as a baseball natural ("Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man ever to play baseball"-Ty Cobb), an illiterate hick (his table untemsils consisted of knife and fingers), and an innocent man snared by the greatest scandal in baseball history.

     BLUNDER: BILLY BUCKNER'S MANAGER LEFT HIM IN THE GAME. Baseball bloopers are fun; they're funny, even. A pitcher slips on the mound and his pitch sails over the backstop. An infielder camps under a pop-up...and the ball lands ten feet away. An outfielder tosses a souvenir to a fan...but that was just the second out, and runners are circling the bases (and laughing). Without these moments, the highlight reels wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. Baseball blunders, however, can be tragic, and they will leave diehard fans asking why...why...why? Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders does its best to answer all those whys, exploring the worst decisions and stupidest moments of managers, general managers, owners, and even commissioners. As he did in his Big Book of Baseball Lineups, Rob Neyer provides readers with a fascinating examination of baseball's rich history, this time through the lens of the game's sometimes hilarious, often depressing, and always perplexing blunders. · Which ill-fated move cost the Chicago White Sox a great hitter and the 1919 World Series? · What was Babe Ruth thinking when he became the first (and still the only) player to end a World Series by getting caught trying to steal? · Did playing one-armed Pete Gray in 1945 cost the Browns a pennant? · How did winning a coin toss lead to the Dodgers losing the National League pennant on Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'round the World"? · How damaging was the Frank Robinson-for-Milt Pappas deal, really? · Which of Red Sox manager Don Zimmer's mistakes in 1978 was the worst? · Which Yankees trade was even worse than swapping Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps? · What non-move cost Buck Showalter a job and gave Joe Torre the opportunity of a lifetime? · Game 7, 2003 ALCS: Pedro winds up to throw his 123rd pitch...what were you thinking? These are just a few of the legendary (and not-so-legendary) blunders that Neyer analyzes, always with an eye on what happened, why it happened, and how it changed the fickle course of history. And in separate chapters, Neyer also reviews some of the game's worst trades and draft picks and closely examines all the teams that fell just short of first place. Another in the series of Neyer's Big Books of baseball history, Baseball Blunders should win a place in every devoted fan's library.

    

    But ever since his student days, the BBC security correspondent has done some epicly hard travelling in a remarkable number of countries. Drawing on the diaries, sketches and photos he kept during his travels, his immaculately observed accounts of these often strange, sometimes daring, adventures in many of the world's most out of the way places form the backbone of his new book.In June 2004, while reporting on what should have been a routine assignment in Riyadh, his life - never mind his ability to travel the world - was nearly brought to a violent end by Islamist gunmen. Incredibly, Frank not only survived being shot six times at point blank range but also, against all the odds and through force of will, has found himself looking towards those far horizons once more. He's not only been slalom skiing in the Alps, scuba diving in the Red Sea and explored the jungle in northern Thailand. And he is also reporting once more from far-flung destinations like Afghanistan and Colombia - and this is a man who no longer has the use of his legs...This is Frank Gardner's compelling, personal yet unsentimental account of the myriad adventures that made him the man he was on that fateful day five years ago - and of the journeys he's made since, and how they've helped him to become the remarkable and inspiring individual he is today.

    Even before their epic pitching duel, Marichal and Spahn already had a lot in common. Future Hall of Famers with high-kicking deliveries, they were shaped into winners by character-building experiences in the military. Spahn had been baseball's most winning pitcher in the 1950s, and Marichal would be equally dominant in the 1960s. The Braves' Spahn and the Giants' Marichal began their duel in San Francisco's cold and windy Candlestick Park. Four hours later, the two pitching legends were deadlocked in a scoreless tie when Willie Mays hit a walk-off home run to end the greatest game ever pitched. In between, Marichal and Spahn each threw more than 200 pitches and went 16 innings without relief. Considering today's culture of pitch counts and coddled arms, it was proved to be a legendary night that won't be repeated ever again.

    It is my honor to invite you to enter into his world."--John Thorn, Official Historian, Major League BaseballThe fascinating, true, origin story of baseball -- how America's first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation. Baseball's true founders don't have plaques in Cooperstown. The founders were the hundreds of uncredited amateurs -- ordinary people -- who played without gloves, facemasks or performance incentives in the middle decades of the 19th century. Unlike today's pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses and fought in the Civil War.The wrongness of baseball history can be staggering. You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn't. You have read that baseball's color line was uncrossed and unchallenged until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. You have been told that the clean, corporate 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball's first professional club. Not true. They weren't the first professionals; they weren't all that clean, either. You may have heard Cooperstown, Hoboken, or New York City called the birthplace of baseball, but not Brooklyn. Yet Brooklyn was the home of baseball's first fans, the first ballpark, the first statistics--and modern pitching. Baseball was originally supposed to be played, not watched. This changed when crowds began to show up at games in Brooklyn in the late 1850s. We fans weren't invited to the party; we crashed it. Professionalism wasn't part of the plan either, but when an 1858 Brooklyn versus New York City series accidentally proved that people would pay to see a game, the writing was on the outfield wall. When the first professional league was formed in 1871, baseball was already a fully formed modern sport with championships, media coverage, and famous stars. Professional baseball invented an organization, but not the sport itself. Baseball's amazing amateurs had already done that.Thomas W. Gilbert's history is for baseball fans and anyone fascinating by origin stories and American culture.

    A fixture behind home plate throughout the Yankees biggest successes, Jorge became the Yankees' star catcher almost immediately upon his arrival, and in the years that followed, his accomplishments, work ethic, and leadership established him as one of the greatest Yankees ever to put on the uniform.Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Jorge Posada details his journey to home plate, sharing a remarkable, generational account of his journey from the ball fields of Puerto Rico to the House that Ruth built. Offering a view from behind the mask unlike any other, Jorge discusses the key moments and plays that shaped teams and forged a legacy that came to define Yankee baseball for a generation. With pitch-by-pitch recall, Jorge looks back across the years, explaining how--as part of the Core Four alongside Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera--he helped to reestablish the Yankees as a dynasty and win five World Series.Going beyond his all-star career, Jorge also shares his life in full for the first time, examining how his remarkable journey to the big leagues began in the most unexpected of ways. Digging into his cultural roots in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, Jorge illuminates three generations of cherished father-son relationships that have made him the man he is today. At the center is the deep bond he shares with his father and namesake, Jorge Sr, who escaped Cuba and would eventually mold his son to be a ball player, honing his talent and instilling in him the drive necessary to fulfill his childhood dream of playing in the Bronx.Complete with sixteen pages of color photographs, this touching and earnest memoir is a testament to hard work and a celebration of the generational gift of baseball between fathers and sons.

      Considered by Ty Cobb as “the finest natural hitter in the history of the game,” “Shoeless Joe” Jackson is ranked with the greatest players to ever step onto a baseball diamond. With his awesome talent for every aspect of baseball, the man from Pickens County, South Carolina, was destined to become one of the greatest players in the sport’s history . . . until the “Black Sox” scandal of 1919, in which Jackson and his teammates were accused of taking money to throw the World Series.   And while many have sympathized with Jackson’s ban from baseball, not much is truly known about the quiet slugger. Whether he participated in the throwing of the World Series or not, he is still considered one of the game’s best, and many have fought for his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. This “engaging biography of a different era in Chicago baseball history” tells the story of the incredible life of Joseph Jefferson Jackson (Illinois Times).   Following his journey from a mill boy to a baseball icon, author Tim Hornbaker depicts the rise and fall of “Shoeless Joe,” offering an insider’s view of baseball’s Deadball Era—including Jackson’s personal thoughts on the “Black Sox” scandal, which has never been covered before.

    Through the years, the group's trademark razor-sharp choreography, finely tuned harmonies, and compelling vocals made them the exemplars of the Motown style. This is the frank, revealing story of the legendary supergroup, told by its founder.